The First Annual Lyons Township High School MUN Conference (LYMUN)

by Bill Kosmidis on March 10, 2015

Picture of the LYMUN Secretariat! (Courtesy of LYMUN Secretary General)

After four years of helping run St. Ignatius Lyons Township Model United Nations Conference (SILTMUN), Lyons Township High School officially established its first independent conference: LYMUN this year. According to the Secretary General of LYMUN, Bakhtawar Mirjat, St. Ignatius High School originally aided Lyons Township with its conference the past four years due to St. Ignatius’s expertise in running high school conferences and the lack of sufficient resources possessed by Lyons Ttownship’s small club. However, after years of growth and success at conferences both within the Midwest region and across the United States, Lyons Township High School began its preparations for LYMUN since the first week of June and after months of work, successfully put on a great one-day conference.

LYMUN consisted of 15 committees; almost all receiving some form of crisis simulation (even utilizing video technology for most committees, boasting the high school’s award winning school TV program). I personally competed in a very unique conference: Modern Day Mount Olympus, where delegates represented the various Greek Gods. Furthermore, the conference invited the Pakistani Consulate General of Chicago as their Keynote Speaker in order to provide insight into Pakistan as a nation and where it fits in the global power structure.

Having attended over around 20 conferences in my life, I genuinely appreciated the caliber of the secretariat of LYMUN as each chair and vice chair was quite well versed in parliamentary procedure. Ms. Mirjat explained this as her vision when planning the first ever LYMUN conference, stating, “I wanted to make sure each and every delegate had a good experience in relation to the quality of parliamentary procedure followed by his or her dais members.”

Nonetheless, every conference has its areas that can be improved on for the next year. For LYMUN, the lack of depth in the background guides translated to a lack of intense in-committee debate which most delegates tend to see in high level conferences. For example, in my committee one of the topics was articulated in simply one page in the background guide. Subsequently, in-committee debate reflected the same lack of depth that was evident in these background guides. Therefore, I urge LYMUN to continue to upkeep its amazing crisis simulation, tight organization, and well informed chairs, but perhaps improve upon the length and depth of background guides to provide both novice and veteran delegates with the framework to write equally well researched position papers and feel confident and familiar with the topic subject areas.

Delegation AwardsBest Large Delegation: St. Ignatius High SchoolBest Small Delegation: University of Chicago Laboratory High School

Congratulations to the LYMUN team on hosting a wonderful first conference, we look forward to seeing what’s in store for the next LYMUN conference!